VERBENA MELINDRES. 
509 
near Chillo, growing at an elevation of up- 
wards of 8000 feet above the sea. Mr. J. 
Cattell, nurseryman, of Westerham, has also 
raised it from seeds received in 1845 from 
Texas, and it has bloomed with him during 
the present summer. 
In a letter with which Mr. Cattell has fa- 
voured us (dated September 18th) he states as 
follows : — 
" Seeds of this beautiful Castilleja were re- 
ceived from Texas in July 1845, without any 
name, but the plant was recommended to be 
grown as being curious and very beautiful. 
About November some of the plants which 
were raised began to show flower, but in 
December they damped off ; the later plants 
kept better, and were planted in the open 
ground in May, where they have been in 
flower ever since. I am not able to say whe- 
ther the plant is an annual or a perennial ; 
three plants are now breaking up again from 
the bottom, but one very strong one, twenty 
inches in height, and which has had upwards 
of twenty spikes of bloom, is not yet breaking 
up. I have not found it seed at all without 
being set, but it then produces seeds in abun- 
dance ; it may also be increased by cuttings, 
but this mode is hardly worth the trouble, as 
one good pod contains four or five hundred 
seeds. As far as I have been able to judge of 
its culture, I should recommend the seed to be 
sown about the middle and end of August, and 
when the plants are large enough, to be potted 
off and kept in a very airy pit or green-house 
in winter. I have reason to believe that a i'uw 
degrees of frost will not be injurious to it. 
Probably its greatest enemy will be the short 
dull days of the winter months. If seeds are 
sown in a gentle heat in February, I think the 
plants would be in bloom by July. The soil 
in which I have grown it in pots is sandy peat 
and loam, but in the open ground it is planted 
in the common soil, which is light and sandy." 
The Castillejas are reputed to be difficult 
plants to cultivate, chiefly on account of their 
suffering much from the dampness of the cli- 
mate during the winter months. They are 
also stated to grow best in peat soil, or pro- 
bably in any l:ght soil which will admit a free 
passage for moisture. They belong to the 
natural order Scrophulariacese, and to the hin- 
nsean Didynamia Angiospermia. 
VERBENA MELINDRES. 
Of all the (lowers for bedding out, there is 
not one which surpasses this strikingly beau- 
tiful subject ; and it is to be regretted that 
more pains are not taken to produce varieties 
of colour with the same habit. It may be, and 
is vry desirable to improve the flower, but 
we ought not to lose sight of the habit. The 
Verbena should be arranged in two classes ; 
one cannot be too dwarf, the other may be 
shrubby : all are excellent for border-flowers ; 
even the taller ones keep the garden lively. 
But the Verbena Melindres is exactly the kind 
of habit which shows off the geometrical gar- 
dens. A few plants in early spring placed a 
foot or even more apart, will rapidly ■ spread 
and meet so as to form a close mass of green 
foliage nearly covered with its brilliant scarlet 
flowers, so close indeed to each other, that the 
green foliage only forms a sort of groundwork, 
like a green carpet richly ornamented with 
scarlet flowers, only just raised above it. It 
runs along the ground, striking root at every 
joint, and blooms on every inch of its growth. 
The only treatment it requires is to guide the 
shoots in the early part of the season, and in 
The Verbena. 
case of being disturbed by the wind, to peg 
them down, or, which is rpiite as good, fasten 
them down with bass matting, which should be 
cut into lengths of about eight or nine inches, 
doubled over the shoot, and dibbled into the soil, 
which will hold them down quite fast enough 
if squeezed close. Firm pegs, however, if 
they can be had, will save time, and as the plant 
strikes, can be moved from one place to another. 
When the plant shoots fully, nearly as far as 
it is wanted to till, the end should be pinched 
off, and if any shoot is growing too fast, it may 
be checked to encourage side shoots : by these 
means the plant, as we have before described, ' 
forms a dense mass of foliage and bloom not 
six inches high. What advantage there would 
be gained for these geometrical gardens if we 
had white, pink, lilac, and purple of the same 
habit, instead of being obliged to resort to 
other flowers to make a variety ; because the 
best of ether clump llowers are poor and tem- 
porary as compared with the Verbena. 
